Day 10 - Space Center Houston

Continuing one of our trip themes of space, we were super excited to get over to the Space Center Houston today. The hotel had cleared out from the weekend and the breakfast area had more food options. We were out the door and on the bike at 9:30am. We fueled up the bike and got to the Space Center right at 10am when they opened. It is just a few miles from our hotel on the same NASA Road 1. 

Rob learned that the center has an app whereby you can reserve a spot for the tram tours that take you to the working campus of Johnson Space Center. In the parking lot the bluetooth becomes available and we could view the two tour options: Mission Control tour and Astronaut Training Facility/Rocket Park. We chose Mission Control first. The app has a countdown on how long the virtual wait is until you need to get on the tram, so we walked around and started looking at a few exhibits. 

We got partway through the Shuttle Independence/747 exhibit outside, this is the underside of it. It is a full scale shuttle replica and the first operating shuttle carrier. Inside we learned how the idea came to be to carry the shuttle on a modified 747. It started with a smart guy, radio controlled model airplanes and a lot of trial and error. 

By then it was getting close to time to walk back to the tram area. The tour took us to the Johnson Space Center campus. It is a huge, gated and secured area with dozens of buildings. It has its own streets and traffic lights.

We went to the Mission Control building that has interesting architecture on the facade. After a 87-step walk up a few floors, we were guided into the original Mission control viewing room. The picture below lists all of the missions overseen from this Mission Operations Control Room. It was in operation up until 1992.

In front of us were all the old control panels used for the first flight to the Moon and other historic missions. Our guide told us we'd watch a short film. Then, dramatically, the lights dimmed and the entire control room lit up, screens and monitors had charts and numbers on them. We were transported back to the exact moment when Mission Control was landing the astronauts on the Moon. NASA combined actual footage and recordings, plus notebooks and even original cigarette butts to recreate the event authentically. It all happened before computers, amazing. In the below picture, on the far right screen, you can see the TV image of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon. Notice the ash tray and cigarette butts on the lower left of the picture below.

After that, we got back on the tram and headed back. We caught a sighting of the resident alligator, Meco, named for the acronym of "Main Engine Cut Off". Those NASA people are so funny.

By then Michele was ready for lunch so we ordered through an efficient ordering system. Through an ordering station monitor, you pick a food vendor in the food court area, scan any drinks or chips items, then pay for it all self-service. We went over to the salad area that displayed our order number on a monitor above, and the lady then customized Michele's salad. About when we finished lunch, we got in the virtual waiting line for the second tram tour to visit the training center and the Saturn V exhibit. We had about 30 minutes to wait so we went back to the Shuttle area and walked up and through it. It was really cool to see inside a Shuttle cockpit. 

After that we walked over to the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Our tram was boarding so we hustled back to the tram area and discovered we were the last two people on our tram, and that all the rest of the tram tours were sold out for the day. So glad we reserved our spot when we did. This time our tram took us first to the Training Center. What an amazing place! So much is happening in this working building. They have many "low fidelity" modules of the ISS to help astronauts learn various procedures. Below are the Russian modules including a "high fidelity" Russian Soyuz capsule (grey sphere). 

The U.S. modules.

Along with full scale sections of the International Space Station, new capsules are being designed and tested for future manned flights. Below is a prototype of a potential Mars habitat (left side). Called the Alpaca, because the center airlock looks like a face, it has two tall solar arrays. A "low fidelity" Shuttle is also visible.

Below is the Orion capsule. This will eventually be flown atop the SLS and take astronauts back to the Moon and possibly to Mars.

Nicknamed the Gateway the below module will be placed in orbit around the Moon and be used as a connecting point for travel from the Earth to the lunar surface or possibly Mars. Astronauts would fly via the Orion capsule from Earth to the Gateway and then from the Gateway, they would catch a connecting flight on a different piece of hardware to the lunar surface or Mars. Hopefully the layover is not too long. 

 

There's an entire robotics section that was really cool. Robots are expected to play an important role in a human mission to Mars.

 

 

Back on the tram, we rode over to the Saturn V building. This is a heavily restored and more complete version of the same rocket we saw in Huntsville. Back in 2000, they built a climate controlled building around the rocket and restored it. The rocket had been sitting outside in the elements for 30 years and was degrading badly so the project was undertaken to preserve this important piece of the U.S. space program. It is one of three complete Saturn V rockets in existence and the only one restored to flight certified status. The detail you can see on this rocket is much greater than the one at Huntsville. There were 21 Saturn V's built but only 17 were launched to the moon. Number 18 was used to lift Skylab into orbit leaving 19-21 unused on earth and now available for all of us to see. We didn't have too long inside, but were able to see it from every angle.

 

Then we headed back to the main museum. With the tram tours done, we could more leisurely see all the exhibits. We saw the Starship Gallery with Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules. Michele touched a real Moon rock. We walked through the International Space Station Gallery and learned about its predecessor, SkyLab. There was a mannequin rotating in a crouched position to mimic weightlessness. For a second or two it looked real as we entered! You can see him in the upper left of the below picture. Skylab incidentally was built from a hollowed out shell of the 3rd stage of the Saturn V rocket. Since the program was cut short at 17 lunar missions, it was an inexpensive way to conduct more science in microgravity.

We walked through Mission Mars and learned about its atmosphere and planned missions for the future. Michele touched a real Mars rock. It felt the same as the Moon rock.

We learned about the evolution of materials to protect the astronauts from space debris. Even items that appear harmless can be extremely damaging when hurled at 15,000mph. Look what this tic-tac size plastic pellet did to a 4in thick block of aluminum! Space debris is no joke!

The center had all kinds of neat exhibits hanging from the ceiling. Here is the Lunar Lander.

Here's a Shuttle flight suit that was on display.

We saw the astronauts gallery which has a picture of every mission beginning with Alan Shepherd all the way up to the latest ISS expedition, on a huge wall. It's really impressive. Michele read Scott Kelley's book a few years ago and really liked it, so she looked for him in the photos. We finished up going through the inventions area and got a few surprises. A flux capacitor!

At 3:20 we were all done and pretty tired. It had rained since we were inside so we had to wipe down the bike a bit. It started raining again so we hustled to get on the bike and back to our hotel so we wouldn't have to get all the rain gear out. Luckily the rain seemed very local and just a mile away it was drier. 

Back at our hotel, we both agreed that the tour of the Training Center was the surprising highlight. Walking into the catwalk area above the floor, there's so much to see and take in. Michele said, if where you work offers tours to the public, you know you work in a cool place. 

We rested for awhile and then ordered Italian food delivery from Marios nearby. It was one of the better meals of our trip so far. On the laptop we watched the replay of the MotoGP races from yesterday, taking place in Argentina. They are flying to Austin this week as we make our way there also for the race this coming weekend!

Today was cooler weather than we expected. It was cloudy all day keeping the temps down with some drizzle as we were on the tram. Tomorrow will get up to 95 degrees in San Antonio! We are planning to meet Rob's coworkers from the San Antonio office for happy hour at a restaurant near our hotel. We changed hotels to be closer to this location.